Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about:

Why failure is part of the hidden curriculum

Why you can’t be creative or innovative without failing [sometimes a lot]

How to learn from it, instead of sweeping it under the rug

A failure our guest and our host each faced

A discussion of the Museum of Failure


Our guest is: Dr. Samuel West, a licensed psychologist (cognitive behavioral therapy) with a PhD in Organizational Psychology. His research focuses on creating climates for innovation by encouraging experimentation and exploration. In 2017 he founded the Museum of Failure showcasing over a 100 innovation failures from around the world. The aim of the museum is to stimulate productive discussions about the important role of failure for innovation and to increase organizational acceptance of failure.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the co-creator and co-producer of the Academic Life. She previously worked in Museum Education at a small museum in New York; and as a PhD student worked for a professor who was a Smithsonian curator.
Listeners to this episode might also be interested in:

The Museum of Failure

The Museum of Broken Relationships

The remote control referred to in this podcast

The marshmallow candy referred to in this podcast


TedTalk on Failing “Mindfully”


Podcast on fear and failure


Podcast on the role of failure in student success


Failosophy: A Handbook for When Things Go Wrong, by Elizabeth Day

Dr. Manu Kapur’s work on Productive Failure



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